SA wrote:
>
>
> Just as a point of information: The Republican Party was formed several
> years before John Brown's raid, and was already very close to being the
> majority party in the North.
Yes, and nominated an oddball, an odderball even than Nader, for president. It was the fragmenting of the old parties in 1860 that made the Republican Party a contender. (Of course we don't kow what would have happened had the parties not fragmented -- that's as doubtful as our own future.
My take on the Planters is grounded in the writings of Barbara Jeanne Fields, especially her book on the "middle ground" during the Civil War.
>
> Of course, I'm not contesting that the raid contributed to the tensions
> that led to the secession crisis the next year.
O.K. I guess we're not too far apart on this.
Incidentally, I don't know or at least remember the exact dats of Brown's operations in Kansas.
Miscellaneous info: Fremont was Thomas Hart Benton's son-in-law, and Benton wrote a rather beautiful (and huge two-volume) book entitled _Thirty Years View of the Unnited States Senate_. Independently of its politics it has that touching quality that comes when anyone describes in detail what he/she loves.
Carrol
>
> SA
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